Description

Tank Driver is the story of a young man’s combat initiation in World War II. Based on letters home, the sparse narrative has the immediacy of on-the-spot reporting. Ted Hartman was a teenager when he was sent overseas to drive a Sherman tank into combat to face the desperate German counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hartman gives a riveting account of the shifting tides of battle and the final Allied breakout. He tells about the concentration camps, the spectacle of the defeated Germans, and the dramatic encounter with Russian soldiers in Austria that marked combat’s end. This is a vivid, personal account of some of the most dramatic fighting of World War II.

Author Bio

J. Ted Hartman was 19 years old when he got behind the controls of a tank and drove it into battle. After receiving a discharge from the army, he took a medical degree and became an orthopedic surgeon. He was founding chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the School of Medicine, Texas Tech University, from which he is now retired.

Reviews

“The vivid, personal account of a teenager's combat initiation during some of the most dramatic fighting in World War II. Based on letters home, this narrative has the immediacy of on-the-spot reporting.”

“[A] well-balanced, often moving look at one man’s war and every man’s war.”
— World War II

Customer Reviews

Table of Contents

List of MapsForeword by Spencer C. TuckerPrefaceAcknowledgments1. The Army Beckons2. Basic Training at Camp Roberts3. ASTP at the University of Oregon4. Camp Cooke5. Going Abroad6. England7. Forced March across Northern France8. Entry into Battle9. The Ambush at Noville10. First and Second Drives to the Rhine11. Bloody Easter12. Bayreuth to Grafenwohr13. Release of Concentration Camp Prisoners14. Fierce Battle for the City of Regen15. The Intensity of the Drive Continues16. Mauthausen, Gusen I and Gusen II17. Mass Surrender and Death March18. Adjusting to Peacetime19. Waiting to Go Home20. Belgium Remembers: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge21. Belgium Revisited, May 2000: Belgian Memorial DayBibliographyIndex